Ruth W. Messinger is the president of American Jewish World Service, an international development organization that supports human rights for marginalized people around the world. She assumed this role following a 20-year career in public service in New York City, where she served for 12 years on the New York City Council and eight years as Manhattan Borough President. She was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for Mayor of New York City in 1997. A steadfast advocate for human rights and global justice, Messinger has served on the Obama administration’s Task Force on Global Poverty and Development and currently sits on the State Department’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group.

If we intend to develop policies that are fair and just, we must collaborate with sex workers themselves to afford them the dignity that they and all of us deserve. It’s time for sex workers’ rights to be an integrated part of the global human rights agenda.